Bernadotte's missive, like a shell, bursts with crushing force. The fact that McMahon's movements in '98 are continually reported to the British Government would show, however, that it was not until _after_ the collapse of the rebellion, and want stared him in the face, that he sold his information. When hunger sent its spasm remorse lost its pang. In the report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, issued in 1798, it appears, from the sworn testimony of John Hughes of Belfast, that in June 1797 he attended a meeting at Randalstown, which consisted of Teeling, Lowry, Robert Moore, and Colonel James Plunkett. He attended said meeting by the direction of Lowry and Teeling to hear the report of the Colonels of the County of Antrim. The Report was brought by Dunne, accompanied by the Rev. Arthur MacMahon of Holywood. The first resolution was that it would be imprudent to act at that time without foreign aid, but that if the County of Down would act, a part of the Antrim Colonels, who could bring out nine or ten thousand men, would act with Down. The meeting broke up in consequence of the division amongst the Antrim Colonels. The Rev. Arthur MacMahon told the meeting that he had been sent by the Colonels of the County of Down to state to the Colonels of the County of Antrim, who had met at Park Gate that day, that they (the Colonels of Down) were willing to rise, and that he had delivered such the message of the Down Colonels to the Antrim Colonels. MacMahon was then a member of the Ulster Provincial Committee, and he told him that he had been one of the seven Colonels of the County of Down who had been selected and appointed leaders for said county; and he also told him that he (MacMahon) was a member of the National Executive. MacMahon was informed on his road home (as he heard) that he would be taken; and he, Robert Rollo Read, Hastings Mason, once an officer in the Downshire Militia, and John Magennis, took boat at Bangor and got over to Scotland, and afterwards _MacMahon got to France_, where he still is.--Pp. 28-9. The report and appendix of the Secret Committee is known to have been edited by Alexander Knox, whom Lord Macaulay afterwards described as 'a remarkable man.' Mr. Knox was the private secretary of Lord Castlereagh; and, in compiling the report for the Government, he disclosed as much of McMahon's proceedings as was convenient for their purpose. The Government well knew that McMahon had engaged deeply in treason between the period of his taking boat at Bangor and getting to France. The second volume of Lord Castlereagh's Correspondence opens with the following secret letter. Quigley, or O'Coigly, will be remembered as the unfortunate priest who was hanged at Maidstone in May 1798:--